2013 German Grand Prix lap charts

The appearance of the Safety Car in the middle of the race left pitwall strategists scrambling to react. Who were the winners and losers?

In any Safety Car situation the leading driver is likely to lose out as the pack suddenly closes up behind them. That was Sebastian Vettel. He didn’t have much of a margin over second placed Romain Grosjean but the deployment of the Safety Car brought his title rivals Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso back into contention.

This was also bad news for Grosjean. By staying out longer on the soft tyres at the start of the race he’d earned a 12 second lead over his team mate which was eradicated at a stroke. Over the final laps Lotus split the strategies between their drivers – putting Grosjean on mediums and Raikkonen on softs – which ultimately led to Grosjean being told to let Raikkonen by into second.

After the race Jenson Button said the Safety Car “didn?óÔé¼Ôäót help our strategy” but in the final reckoning it probably didn’t cost him all that much. He might have stood a better chance of beating Lewis Hamilton without it, but the time he lost behind the Caterhams also played a role in that.

However the Safety Car was bad news for another driver who started on medium tyres: Nico Hulkenberg. He pitted seven laps before it came out so there was no point in him returning to the pits. It meant that when he eventually made his pit stop on lap 37 he came out behind several drivers who caught up to heim behind the Safety Car.

The biggest winner had to be Mark Webber. He had fallen a lap behind due to a disastrous pit stop. The Safety Car meant he was waved back onto the lead lap and allowed to catch the field up, from where he swiftly made inroads towards the top ten.

The lap chart and race chart below reveal more about how the Safety Car shaped the race.

German Grand Prix lap chart

The positions of each driver on every lap. Use the control below to show/hide different drivers:

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/charts/2013drivercolours.csv

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Lewis Hamilton

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Sebastian Vettel

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7

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5

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1

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Mark Webber

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Kimi Raikkonen

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Romain Grosjean

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6

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2

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Daniel Ricciardo

6

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14

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Felipe Massa

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Fernando Alonso

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Jenson Button

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6

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Nico Hulkenberg

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12

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Nico Rosberg

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Paul di Resta

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Sergio Perez

13

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13

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9

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Esteban Gutierrez

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Adrian Sutil

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Jean-Eric Vergne

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Valtteri Bottas

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Pastor Maldonado

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Jules Bianchi

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Giedo van der Garde

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Max Chilton

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Charles Pic

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German Grand Prix race chart

The gaps between each driver on every lap. Use the control below to show/hide different drivers:

20 comments on “2013 German Grand Prix lap charts”

I assume it’s because on Vettel’s 24th lap, he completed most of it at full speed. As Webber was a lap down, his 24th lap was behind the safety car, presumably 54 seconds slower on that lap. Is that right…?

anyone losing points to webber today must be angry. Not cos he got his lap back as that rule has been there for ages it just usually doesnt effect the points but more due to the fact that the unsafe pit release wasnt a penalty of some kind.

That rule is in place so that we don’t wind up with a Marussa leading the pack on a restart. It’s a good rule IMO. It worked in Webber’s case only because Webber had a really strong race pace. It seems to me that he was the fastest car in the second half of the race, and that’s with passing 11 or 12 cars during the period. It seems to have been an exceptional drive that nobody saw on the telly ..

I am almost certain that Kimi would have won had he skipped his last stop.

– He was 14 seconds ahead of Vettel with 12 laps to go.

– Vettel was closing at half a second per lap.

– Perez had his second pit stop on the same lap as Kimi, and he staid out until the end, and his lap times didn’t increase in the last 12 laps.

– Vettel could not have gone quicker because he also had to defend from Grosjean.

So I think Kimi would have had around 7-8 seconds advantage over Vettel at the end.

Of course, all this was not known when they took the decision, but I think it would have been worth the risk as the absolute worst that could have happened would have been Kimi ending up in fourth position.

You are not including a factor for continued tire degradation on Kimi’s car. He already had lots of laps on those tires and his pace was no better than Grosjan until the pit stop. In fact he needed the soft tires to pass Grosjan if I’m remembering it correctly.

Those Mercedes curves are something to behold. What happened to the iron clad conclusions that Mercedes had beat their tire woes due to their cheat-test in Barcelona and were racking up major points as a result? They got some tires today that are less heat-soaking than those used at the ultra highspeed, tire-killing Silverstone track and they still got wiped out. If not for the SC, Hamilton would have been a bit more than 25 seconds behind. A search team was sent out for Rosberg.

Just looking at the lap charts again, and considering the “Rosberg blocked Hamilton” thread on the forum, perhaps Nico’s reluctance to let Hamilton by did cost Lewis a place. I initially thought that 5th would have been the maximum possible anyway, and he was lucky to get Button at the end after Jenson was held up by the Caterhams, but perhaps he could have defended 4th from Alonso.

Fernando was on Lewis’ tail just prior to the safety car, and Lewis was managing to keep Alonso behind (who was on much fresher tyres) until his pit stop just before the safety car. If Hamilton hadn’t been held up by Rosberg, he would have been a little further up the road, and would have held track position after the safety car. Then Alonso would have more than half the race to overtake Hamilton, but he would have had to do it on track, most likely, as trying the undercut with the soft tyres for a final stint would be risky.

I think Grosjean would have won. It was a two horse race with Vettel and Grosjean had newer tyres. Had he not been forced to pit at the SC he would have overtaken Vettel be it on the track or pumping in a few laps then going on softs with 10 to go. Just my view.

I think watenaccio is referring to a hypothetical race without safety car. Vettel would have stopped shortly after his actual stop (although he might have tried to draw this out), whereas Grosjean might have been able to go to lap 45 or so, when he could have put on the softs.